Feminist Fred

Tammy Wynette is one of the best country singers ever. Something about her voice, which she typically starts out real low and subtle and which eventually climbs to a power and glory that make my heart almost pop from the beauty. Country music is as full of sexism as Rock, most of it tied to the glorification of a woman’s subordinate place serving a man, rather than outright sexual objectification.

But this song has it both ways, and almost questions the status quo in a way that a man can hardly argue with, which it has to, in order to avoid tripping any all-too-sensitive male kneejerk reactions to the slightest threats to their hegemony.

I’ve never seen the inside of a bar room
Or listened to a jukebox all night long
But I see these are the things that bring you pleasure
So I’m gonna make some changes in our home

I’ve heard it said: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”
So if that’s the way you’ve wanted me to be
I’ll change if it takes that to make you happy
From now on you’re gonna see a different me.

Because your good girl’s gonna go bad
I’m gonna be the swingin’est swinger you’ve ever had
If you like ‘em painted up powdered up
Then you oughta be glad
‘Cause your good girl’s gonna go bad.

I’ll even learn to like the taste of whiskey
In fact, you’ll hardly recognize your wife
I’ll buy some brand new clothes and dress up fancy
For my journey to the wilder side of life.

Because your good girl’s gonna go bad
I’m gonna be the swingin’est swinger you’ve ever had
If you like ‘em painted up powdered up
Then you oughta be glad
‘Cause your good girl’s gonna go bad.

Oh Yeah Your good girl’s gonna go bad.

Because it dares to create a possibility of questioning why a woman’s role can be both reviled and glorified for close to the same reasons, I’d call this song almost feminist.

I was about 12 years old when this song was a hit, and it made me feel very nervous about what it meant to be a man. The air of menace is pretty extreme in this song, from the obvious resemblance of the title to the word “rapist”, to the warning, finger-shaking tone of blame it takes toward the women in the world who need to beware of the Rapper, to the description of his techniques in seducing women, which are threatening, manipulative and evil.

Hey girl, I bet you
There’s someone out to get you.
You’ll find him anywhere
On a bus, in a bar, in a grocery store.
He’ll say “Excuse me, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

Rap, rap, rap, they call him the Rapper.
Rap, rap, rap, you know what he’s after.

So, he starts his rappin’
Hoping something will happen.
He’ll say he needs you,
A companion, a girl he can talk to.
He’s made up his mind.
He needs someone to sock it to.

Rap, rap, rap, they call him the Rapper.
Rap, rap, rap, you know what he’s after.

He’s made an impression,
So he makes a suggestion.
“Come up to my place
For some coffee or tea or me.”
He’s got you where he wants you.
Girl, you’ve gotta face reality.

Rap, rap, rap, they call him the Rapper.
Rap, rap, rap, you know what he’s after

How’s a boy supposed to distinguish between what this rapist is doing and what he’s been taught to do in order to earn the romantic attentions of the girls he longs to love? And it’s confusing to think how menacing and dangerous it sounds to be the prey of what sounds like a fairly non-coercive seduction technique. Then, after all this sinister hinting around, the girl is instructed to simply face reality.

Something I have often thought about but rarely articulated is that men are not only taught how to be men in haphazard and slapdash ways, but also are taught many overtly contradictory ways of expressing masculinity, of varying degrees of evilness and aggression.

I think even the manliest man you have ever met is, at heart, completely uncertain as to just what a man is supposed to do or what is expected of him, and this uncertainty causes a great deal of misunderstood anxiety, which is most handily identified by men as anger and resentment toward women, who he thinks have invented and have sole responsibility for all masculine behavior through the all mighty power of the pussy, before which he trembles in abject fear.

This song does double duty, threatening both men and women with a dark vision of manipulation, coercion and rape.

I got a rare comment from a man who is confused about why I say that men “hate” women:

He notes that men are often kind to women, “…it’s not self-evident – to me at least – such everyday observations of apparent kindness can be reconciled with the view of men as creatures of hate.”

I wrote a long response about men and women not being all one thing or the other, but relative as all things are. And more about the social constructs of masculinity and femininity. But it’s kind of an appropriate introduction to my next misogynist song, wherein the naked, seething hate of a man for a woman he loves is exposed without any filters at all, Jesse Belvin’s doo-wop song “Mess You Up”.

Listen to me, it ain’t fair,
She run around here and there,
I’ll hit her, I declare, I don’t mind going to the electric chair.

I’ll mess you up, hurt you bad,
I laugh and joke but baby, I don’t play.

Been running round with my friend Joe
Ya’ll didn’t think that I would ever know
Now you no-good so-and-so
You gonna reap just what you sow.

I’ll mess you up, hurt you bad,
I laugh and joke but baby, I don’t play.

I thought you loved me like I love you
Why you wanna do the things you do?
I saw you grinnin’ at Jimmy and Jack
I think I’ll disconnect your back.

I’ll mess you up, hurt you bad,
I laugh and joke but baby, I don’t play.

Don’t come messin’ round with me
I’m just about as mad as I can be
I killed a lion when I was only three
Davy Crockett ain’t got a thing on me.

I’ll mess you up, hurt you bad,
I laugh and joke but baby, I don’t play.

I’ll chain down the lightning and ride the thunder
Pin the wind in a jug and beat it with a club

I’ll mess you up, hurt you bad,
I laugh and joke but baby, I don’t play.

It’s easy to laugh at the ferocity in this song if you’re a man wrapped safely in the privilege of exception from such enmity. But if you stop and consider that women are killed and assaulted everyday in ways just like this all over the world, it becomes too sad to crack a cynical grin ever again.